


Kom Skaikru

by enigmaticagentscully



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-22 15:13:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8290513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enigmaticagentscully/pseuds/enigmaticagentscully
Summary: “It was horribly easy to fall in love with someone, it turned out, if you weren’t careful.”
Fic set mostly between seasons two and three, showing the progression of Marcus and Abby’s relationship in that time, running parallel with their changing relationship on the Ark over the years. More a collection of loosely-connected missing scenes than anything.(In which moonshine is drunk, trigedasleng is spoken, overprotective!Marcus has no chill, Abby is actually a pretty decent Chancellor, and no-one gets much sleep (but not in the fun way). Some fluff, some angst, all canon compliant with a few of my own interpretations of past events thrown in for good measure. Please let me know if you like it!)





	1. Dawn

Abby was asleep, though whether that fact had more to do with natural exhaustion or the cocktail of drugs being fed into her arm from the bag hanging next to the medical bed, Marcus wasn’t sure. He also wasn’t sure how much medicine they even had _left_ in their supplies after coming to the ground, or how much was currently being used on those injured from Mount Weather, but possibly that wasn’t important right now. A problem for tomorrow. Today they were alive.

Abby was alive.

The sparse, wheeled medical bed was certainly an improvement on being strapped to Mount Weather’s metal table, but it was still strange to see a tube running out of her arm, and even knowing the good it was doing Marcus found he had to fight the irrational urge to tear it out of her. His mind felt slightly foggy around the edges – the fatigue of the last few days finally catching up with him – and he knew there were probably other places he needed to be, but somehow it seemed very important right now that he be right here.

She was the Chancellor, after all. Someone should be watching over her, and Jackson was busy with half a dozen other people. They desperately needed more doctors for a camp of this size, and Marcus made a mental note to bring it up with Abby when she woke. There was so much that needed to be done...

His train of thought was cut short by the arrival of Bellamy Blake, who entered quietly through the door and stopped short at the sight of Abby. Many of his friends were in medical in the next room, and Marcus instinctively knew that Bellamy had been there first to check on them; he could recognise someone who was clearly doing the rounds. The boy would have made a good Guard. Another thought for tomorrow.

Bellamy gestured to Abby. “Is she...?”

“Asleep,” said Marcus. “Jackson says she’ll be fine. Weak for a few days maybe. Raven too.”

Bellamy nodded. He said nothing for a few moments, but just stood there, staring at empty space. He didn’t look like someone who had finally come home victorious after a long battle. He didn’t look like someone who had just helped save his people from torture and death. He didn’t look like someone who finally had a chance to relax, to breathe after weeks of uncertainty and fear. Instead he looked...

Marcus felt his heart sink. Bellamy looked for all the world like someone steeling himself to deliver bad news. His fears were confirmed when the boy took a deep breath and faced him, his posture tense.

“Clarke’s gone,” he said baldly.

Marcus stared at him, the words taking a few seconds to sink in. “What?” he said. “Have you looked—”

“I don’t mean she’s missing,” said Bellamy, cutting him off. “I mean she left.”

“Where to?”

There was a long silence in which Bellamy just looked at him.

“I see,” said Marcus. He glanced briefly at the sleeping form of Abby, thankful to see that she was showing no signs of stirring. “I take it she’s not planning on coming back any time soon, either?”

Bellamy shook his head.

“And you let her go?”

“I didn’t _let_ her do anything,” said Bellamy, a hard edge to his voice. “It was her choice.”

Marcus bit back his response. Being angry at Bellamy wouldn’t change anything, and it wasn’t his fault that this had happened. After everything the boy had just been through with her, Clarke leaving would probably hurt him more than anyone.

Almost anyone.

“Alright,” Marcus said heavily. “We don’t have to do this now. Thank you for telling me. Let the sentries know so they can be on the lookout in case she...” _In case she’s injured out there, in case she’s attacked, in case she has to come crawling back to camp starved and bleeding._ “...In case she decides to come back.”

“Already done,” said Bellamy.

“And try to get some sleep,” said Marcus. Seeing the wry look of disbelief that crossed Bellamy’s face, he almost smiled. “Clarke will be okay,” he said. “She’s strong and she’s a survivor. And if we don’t find her then she knows where to find us. We’ll be here for her when she does.”

It occurred to Marcus that he was trying the words out, seeing how convincing they sounded even to his own ears. Wondering how convincing they’d sound when he had to go through it again. He looked down at Abby again and felt his stomach lurch with the prospect of the conversation to come.

Bellamy had followed his gaze, and after a moment’s hesitation spoke with a slightly gentler tone: “If you let me know when she wakes up, I can—”

“No.” Marcus said immediately. “No, I’ll tell her.” He pulled a chair to the side of Abby’s bed and sat down on it, trying not to make too much noise. Not that it mattered – she looked like she would be out for a while.

He tried to give Bellamy the approximation of a smile. “I meant it about getting some sleep. You’ve done enough already.”

“Yeah,” said Bellamy, a horrible bitterness in his voice. “Yeah, I have.”

He gave a brief nod, turned and walked out before Marcus could think of a reply. But then what could he say that hadn’t already been said? That Clarke and Bellamy had done the right thing? That in killing hundreds they had potentially saved hundreds more, including their own people and the Grounders who had been paying the price of Mount Weather’s existence for decades? That any of them would have done the same in that position? That they had no choice?

What could anyone possibly say that would make it easier to live with a decision like that? What could anyone possibly say to Clarke that would make her able to come home again?

Marcus sighed. He should get some sleep too, he knew, and Abby would give him hell for that when she found out. But her daughter was gone, and there was no way he was going to let her wake up to an empty room. So he settled down to wait, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, each soft exhalation a reassurance that she was still here with him. That whatever happened now, neither of them would have to face it alone.

 

* * *

 

Marcus had known Abby Griffin for his whole life, one way or another.

He remembered her as a girl, headstrong and gregarious, her thick plait of hair swinging against her back as she ran along the corridors, sticking her nose into everyone’s business. Of course he hadn’t really _known_ her back then, except in the sense that everyone knew everyone on the Ark, at least by sight. A few years later he started hearing her name more often as she grew from a gangly adolescent into a very pretty young woman, kind-hearted and stubborn and smart as a whip, acing every class and always surrounded by friends and admirers. Even so they didn’t have much contact – there were a few years between them in age, and one quiet, serious boy with a religious fanatic for a mother probably didn’t even register on Abby’s radar.

It wasn’t until many years later that he really _met_ her. She was the Chief Medical Officer on the Ark by then, and the youngest appointed Council member in some time, a post she would occupy on and off for the coming years. She had also married Jake Griffin; a man who was calm and measured where she was bold and impulsive, a man with an easy smile and a thoughtful, intelligent mind. A fellow idealist. It was a good match.

Meanwhile Marcus had been slowly working his way up through the Guard. In spite of what people said about him – and he _knew_ what people said about him, heard the mutters that followed wherever he went – he had never thought of himself as a particularly ambitious person. He wasn’t interested in having power over other people, or even the idea of getting ahead for its own sake. He just did his job, and he did it _well_. He enforced the law and protected the people of the Ark, and he gave his best day after day, because he owed his people nothing less. Perhaps Marcus did take after his mother after all, because just as she believed in her preachings, he truly _believed_ in what he did as well.

He was promoted, and promoted again. He gained a reputation for fairness, which somewhere along the line seemed to turn into a reputation for ruthlessness. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t interested in reputations either. What mattered was what a person _did_ , and he did what had to be done, whether people liked it or not.

He did his job.

 

* * *

 

Three days since their return to Arkadia, and Abby was standing outside watching the dawn over the mountains.

The ground was hard as a rock and crunched with frost beneath his boots as Marcus walked over to her, a slender figure silhouetted against the cold morning light. Frost was something difficult to get used to...along with rain, mud, falling leaves, flying insects and a hundred other little things that were so commonplace here and hadn’t even crossed his mind on the Ark. He imagined snow would be even worse if they got any, and right now it seemed more than likely, as cold as it was.

He didn’t know for sure though. Marcus had never done particularly well in Earth Skills as a kid, preferring to focus on more practical things. An unfortunate irony now, of course.

He followed Abby’s gaze as he approached, and saw there was a flock of birds in the distance, a cloud of tiny black dots against the sky, drifting over the mountains. Heading south for the winter, perhaps? He had heard of that happening, although it seemed too late in the year for it now.

This early there was no-one else in sight around the camp except for the distant guards at the perimeter, but still Abby made no sign to acknowledge his presence as he came to a stop beside her.

“You shouldn’t be out of bed,” he said by way of greeting.

“Well you know what they say,” said Abby. “Doctors make the worst patients.”

There was something distant in her voice, as if her mind were miles away across the mountains as well. She wasn’t wearing a coat, he noticed, and her arms were crossed tightly around herself, perhaps an instinctive way of keeping in body heat. It was a vulnerable gesture, making her look even smaller against the vast backdrop of the world.

“Come back inside,” Marcus said. “It’s too cold to be out here alone.”

“Yes is it,” said Abby bleakly, not looking at him.

Marcus winced internally as he realised what he’d just said. Images flashed across his mind of Clarke out there somewhere in the woods, with only the clothes she’s been wearing when she left and the few supplies she’d had in her pack. Three days. If she hadn’t yet found food she would have run out by now. He glanced down at the ground beneath his feet, still hard and glittering with frost.

He looked back up at the woman standing next to him, her face pale and eyes blank, and tried to speak as gently as possible. “Abby—”

“I was thinking about the world before,” she interrupted him, still staring into the distance. “You know, according to Lincoln his people believe this whole area was once a huge city? All those thousands and thousands of people living together...”

She sighed, the little gust of warm breath creating a puff of cloud in the icy air.

“I can’t imagine it,” she said. “Even though I’ve seen pictures, I still can’t believe it was ever like that. The idea that people could just wake up in the morning and go outside and live their lives not having to worry about the air running out, or the water being poisoned, or getting a spear thrown into their chest. I can’t imagine....it must have been so _peaceful_.”

“Right up until the point where they bombed each other into oblivion,” said Marcus. He’d meant it only as an observation, but the remark came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended. The truth was that it was hard not to resent those who had lived before. Their ancestors who had forced them into space, crammed into a crumbling metal coffin to live and die in quiet desperation as their true home spun slowly on hundreds of miles below, tantalisingly out of reach.

There was a long silence. “Maybe that’s just how it goes,” said Abby quietly. “Maybe people just can’t live together for that long without it turning into ‘them or us’ and everything falling apart. And then whoever loses is destroyed...and whoever wins has to live with knowing that it’ll happen all over again, and next time it will probably be their turn.”

“I don’t believe that,” said Marcus. He reached out and touched her lightly on the shoulder, just enough to make her turn to look at him. There was a hopelessness in her eyes that he had never seen before, something that sent a sharp pang through his chest.

“It doesn’t always have to be kill or be killed,” he said, a little unsure whether he was trying to reassure her or himself. “We don’t have to repeat history. Not anymore.”

“We already _have_ ,” said Abby.

Marcus frowned. “Clarke did what she had to do at Mount Weather, but she won’t _ever_ have to do it again. None of us will.” Abby flinched at Clarke’s name but he continued: “We have a chance to find a better way, and your daughter gave us that. We survived and we can learn from what happened so that it never has to happen again.”

Abby closed her eyes briefly and nodded. When she opened them again he could see they were bright with unshed tears. She looked away, drawing back a little from him, an unconscious movement.

“I just wish I could tell her that it wasn’t her fault,” she said. “That it’s this place, this _world_...” Her voice cracked and she took a long shaky breath, visibly pulling herself together. “I just wish I could _talk_ to her.”

“I know,” said Marcus.

He saw a tremor run through her frame – from cold or emotion he wasn’t sure – and fought the sudden impulse to put his arm around her. Even now, after everything they’d been through, he wasn’t entirely sure the gesture would be welcome. But it surprised him how much it hurt not to be able to do it, to offer her some comfort beyond empty reassurances. It was the second time in a handful of days that he had seen her in terrible pain and been helpless to do anything about it.

His arms hung uselessly by his sides.

“Come back inside,” he said finally. “Jackson will be worried if he finds you gone.”

 


	2. A Difference of Perspective

Marcus had been in charge of the Guard on the Ark for a couple of years when Abby Griffin had her baby: a little girl. She took a leave of absence from the Council for a short while and her place had to be filled. Names were put forward, votes were cast, and to his own surprise as much as anyone else’s, Marcus Kane became _Councillor_ Marcus Kane. It was the next logical step, of course, and he accepted the position with genuine gratitude, but the whispers that had followed him for years were louder now. He never was sure if people resented the fact that someone should work their way up to such a position with no privileged friends or connections to help them, or whether it was him _personally_ they objected to. He couldn’t decide which was worse. Either way, being in charge of law and order was never a popular job, and he was even less popular serving as a member of the Council as well.

Still, when all was said and done, he had been voted in. People complained, people judged his methods, questioned his beliefs, raged and cursed at him when they were caught in wrong-doing, but they had voted him in, and as time went on he was not voted out. Whatever Abby Griffin might think, Councillor Kane actually did have a certain amount of faith in his people, and deep down he knew that although they may not particularly _like_ him, they were smart enough to understand that they _needed_ him.

Councillor Abigail Griffin _definitely_ didn’t like him. He had always got that impression when they’d dealt with each other before in a professional capacity, but when she resumed her seat on the Council they came into conflict on an almost daily basis. To her credit, she was not someone to cast aspersions behind his back or try to use her influence to lobby for his removal – no, she was the type to say what she thought directly to his face, and frequently did.

She disliked his methods. She objected to his attitude. She advocated mercy when he believed in justice, she thought it important that the rules be flexible when he thought it vital that they be _fair_ , she spoke out for change and progress while he emphasised the need for order and stability. The one thing they had in common (and he could admit this at least to himself) was that they were both as stubborn as each other and both completely convinced that their way was the right way.

Still, he supposed that from her perspective, she spent her days saving lives while his job so often effectively destroyed them. Perhaps it wasn’t surprising they could never see eye to eye.

 

* * *

 

Guard duty around the perimeter of Arkadia was boring. Marcus had to admit that of all the ways he ever thought he might describe life on the ground, ‘boring’ was not one of them, but it turned out boredom was a pretty much universal experience. Certainly _rare_ these days, but right here and now...he was, in fact, bored.

It was nearing midnight, he had been standing watch at his post for a little over an hour, and the air had that damp, heavy feel that he had come to learn meant rain later. For now the stars were obscured by cloud. A faint breeze stirred the leaves of the distant forest, looming in the shadow outside the artificial ring of light created by the Arkadia camp. Floodlights had been set up along the perimeter fence so that they could easily see anyone approaching at night, and the bright, cold electric light was familiar and oddly comforting, reminding Marcus of the lighting back on the Ark itself, where the sun was only rarely seen and never truly felt.

Keeping watch on the perimeter might not be the most exciting duty, but it needed to be done, and since it was so unpopular Marcus had made it a point to include himself in the rotation of shifts. This was something the Guard had never had to worry about on the Ark, he mused, since the Ark didn’t _have_ a perimeter. Or rather the Ark _was_ the perimeter. Of all the problems they’d faced, attack from outside hadn’t been one of them.

It was amazing really, when you thought about it; the simple fact of having to worry about possible hostility from _other people._ All those years they had spent up there in space, believing themselves to be alone, the lucky ones, the survivors, the last little scrap of humanity hanging on to existence. Doing whatever they had to in order to survive, not just for themselves but for the sake of their _species._

But they had been wrong. They weren’t the survivors, they were the _outcasts_. Prisoners kept locked away from their people for decades without even knowing it. And all the while the human race had been doing just fine down here without them. Oh you could argue about mutation and a society steeped in violence and technological regression, but the point was that people had _survived_ on the Earth. A small fraction of what the human race used to be perhaps, but still a significant number of people. From what he’d heard of the Grounder capitol, Marcus estimated there were nearly twice the population of the Ark at its full capacity living in Polis alone.

In the grand scheme of things...the people on the Ark hadn’t been that important at all.

He was trying to work out whether this was a comforting thought or a really depressing one, when footsteps behind him made him turn. Abby was strolling towards him, squinting slightly as her eyes adjusted to the glare of the perimeter lights.

“Is something wrong?” said Marcus, as she came to a stop looking slightly uncertain.

“No, I just couldn’t sleep,” said Abby, and after a few seconds of apparent indecision she sat down on an empty crate near him and leaned back casually against the pile of larger crates behind it.

“Anything to report?” she said, and there was just a hint of irreverence in her voice, an unspoken acknowledgment of how strange it still was for both of them for her to be Chancellor, giving orders and taking reports. How strange it was for Marcus Kane to be answerable to Abby Griffin for the first time in years.

“Quiet as ever,” he replied, resisting the urge to add a ‘Ma’am’ on the end of the sentence just to see her reaction. “No movement on the perimeter.”

_No sign of your daughter. Over two weeks now and no sign._

Abby gave a nod of acknowledgement, her eyes flickering out through the fence to the dark mass of forest beyond. She clearly had something on her mind, and Marcus was content to wait for whatever it was without pushing. He wasn’t going anywhere, and Abby had sat down close enough that he could easily keep an eye on both the edge of the forest and her at the same time. By all rights he should probably tell her that she needed rest and that it wasn’t safe for her to be on the perimeter without a weapon, but he couldn’t see much point in arguing with her now. Besides, he was glad of the company.

That was new, Marcus realised; an unexpected but not unwelcome shift in their relationship. Abby had become a reassuring presence, someone he looked for when he entered a room, someone whose arrival made him relax a little. It certainly made a nice change from the feeling of vague trepidation he always used to get when she walked into the Council chamber on the Ark, the instinctive tensing for an argument. The thought made him smile.

“You know you could have changed your shift tonight,” said Abby suddenly. “Given the early start tomorrow.”

Marcus shrugged. “It worked out this way. It doesn’t matter.” He hesitated for a moment, but figured he owed her a little honesty. “I don’t think I could get much sleep tonight anyway,” he admitted.

“Nervous about tomorrow?”

That was new too, he thought. Back on the Ark, Abby had often asked him what he thought of a situation, but he couldn’t recall her ever asking what he _felt._ Perhaps she hadn’t believed he felt anything at all back then.

“Not nervous,” he said. “Cautious. It’s important that we get this right, and there’s a lot about Grounder culture that we still don’t know. But I trust Indra to honour our peace.”

Abby looked sharply at him. “She left our people to die in Mount Weather,” she said.

“She was following her Commander’s orders.”

“Oh well, that makes it okay then.”

Perhaps he should have prepared for an argument after all. “You don’t think working with Trikru is a good idea?” he asked.

“They murdered children from the day they got here, with no provocation,” said Abby bluntly. “They _crucified_ three of your men. They were going to torture a boy to death just to make some kind of _point_. These are the people you think will honour a peace? When they already broke the one alliance we worked so hard for?”

“They’re ruthless because the world they’ve had to survive in made them that way,” said Marcus. “You said that yourself. And we did far worse things to our own people on the Ark for the same reason. We killed people just for speaking out of line. We had a...a _Commander_ of our own who could overrule any law he saw fit.” He gestured to the main buildings of the camp. “There are children here who were sent down to the ground to die because of things their _parents_ did. There’s a girl in there who was locked up since the day she was born just for _being_ born. Now she’d rather be a Grounder than one of us, and I can’t say I blame her!”

He stopped, aware suddenly that his voice was becoming more heated as he continued and he was dangerously close to ranting. Abby made no reply, just regarded him steadily. Now she had that _look_ , the one he had seen before in Council meetings on the rare occasions he had let his emotions get the better of him. Appraising and slightly pleased, as though she enjoyed seeing him lose the calm objectivity on which his reputation was founded.

He exhaled slowly, very much aware that his own doubts were partly responsible for his vehemence, and that Abby almost certainly knew it. Even when they were on good terms, he thought ruefully, she still had a way of getting under his skin.

“I have to _try_ , Abby,” he said. “We can’t just ignore them and hope they’ll go away.”

“I know,” she said, her voice tinged with that weary resignation that had become so familiar in recent months. “You’re right, we need them. I just wish....sometimes I feel like I’m always watching you go off to meet with the Grounders, and it always ends up with you getting hurt.”

Marcus was a little surprised at this sudden turn more personal in the conversation, but answered automatically: “You can’t really blame them for the missile that hit Tondc,” he said. “That was the Mountain Men.”

“It wasn’t the Mountain Men who threw you in a cell for days when you first went to make peace,” said Abby bitterly. “Who beat Thelonius within an inch of his life just to send a message and sliced open the damn artery in your wrist. That was the _Commander_ that Indra follows.”

“Ah—”

It said something about how long Abby had known him for that even that single hastily aborted syllable made her eyes narrow with suspicion.

“What?” she said.

“Actually...it wasn’t the Commander _or_ the Grounders who sliced open my wrist,” said Marcus. “That was me.”

“What are you talking about?” said Abby, her voice now with a distinctly dangerous edge to it.

“I know Jaha told you they had us in a cell together,” said Marcus. Absurdly, he felt slightly embarrassed. “With the Commander observing us to see what we did.”

“He said you were told one of you had to kill the other,” said Abby. “And you both refused.”

“Yes,” said Marcus slowly. “But they weren’t budging, so I...” He let the words trail off, unsure how to continue, but understanding had already dawned in Abby’s eyes.

“So you decided to take care of it yourself,” she finished for him. She stared at him for a long moment and then raised her hand to rub her temples wearily, letting out a long sigh. “Of course you did,” she muttered. She dropped her hand back down. “And you didn’t mention this at the time because...?”

“It didn’t seem relevant,” said Marcus. “There was a lot going on.”

“Well I don’t see how any of this is supposed to make me feel _better_ about the Grounder meeting tomorrow,” said Abby. “Now I know that if _they_ don’t kill you it looks like you’re more than happy to do it for them.”

“If I didn’t know better Chancellor, I’d say you were worried about me.”

“Don’t get cute with me, Kane,” said Abby, but there was no real bite to it. She was staring out at the tree-line again, not meeting his eyes. Everything about her posture spoke of defeat.

Marcus sighed. “We _will_ be careful, Abby,” he said. “We have to leave our guns behind but that doesn’t mean we’re abandoning our common sense as well. And Indra’s no fool – she knows it’s in her best interests to make this work.” He paused, and then, because he couldn’t help himself, added: “You _did_ authorise this, Chancellor.”

“I know.” Turned away from the glare of the perimeter lights, Abby’s face was shadowed, unreadable.

“I can’t do this without you, Marcus,” she said. “I really can’t.”

He didn’t know if it was the protective cover of darkness or simple exhaustion that had allowed her to make such a frank admission, but he found himself unsure whether to be touched or just embarrassed. If anyone had asked him before, he couldn’t honestly have imagined a situation in which Abby Griffin would ever admit to _needing_ him.

Marcus couldn’t think of a reply that didn’t seem trite or patronising, and so they lapsed into a troubled silence which lasted until another Guard came to relieve him at the end of his shift, and the two of them parted ways with little more than a nod.

He didn’t get much sleep that night, for more reasons than one.


	3. Compromise

Councillor Abby Griffin was an exhausting person to know. It was as if she were powered by some kind of internal dynamo, some fierce relentless force that kept her forever moving forward, questioning, experimenting, arguing, working, _trying._ Between her work in Medical and her Council position and her family, Marcus sometimes wondered how she even found the time to sleep, let alone argue with him about every single damn thing he ever said in meetings. But argue she did, and the more work she had to do the more she seemed to thrive.

Meanwhile, her husband was made a Senior Engineer, and moving in higher circles had the agreeable side effect of rekindling an old friendship. Marcus had known Jake Griffin as a boy, but they had drifted apart with time, and he was pleased to discover that as adults he could still appreciate the man’s cheerful good humour and dedication to his work. Jake wasn’t as quick to judge Marcus’ actions or his choice of vocation as others were, and it was a relief to have someone to share a drink with at the end of a long day who wasn’t either a Guard under his command or a fellow Council member. Jake was devoted to his family, so Marcus made an effort not to bring up Abby in conversation, as her husband was surely aware of their frequent antagonism. Besides, there was so much about Council business that they weren’t permitted to discuss anyway, and Jake was used to that.

It made things a little difficult sometimes though, that he and Abby couldn’t seem to get along. She was also a close friend of Callie, and Marcus and Callie were...well, perhaps ‘friends’ wasn’t quite the right word for what he and Callie were, but the point was that he could hardly avoid Councillor Griffin all the time. Really it was impossible to avoid _anyone_ on the Ark.

When Diana Sydney became Chancellor he found to his surprise that a common enemy was more effective in building bridges than any amount of mutual friends. Well, perhaps ‘enemy’ wasn’t quite the right word for what Diana was either, but relationships on the Ark always were messy and hard to define. Maybe it was a result of so many people being contained in a small space together, or maybe that was just human nature. Whatever the reason, it quickly became clear that Councillor Griffin had just as much distaste for their new Chancellor’s self-serving political games as Marcus did.

Diana was the kind of person who’d say just about anything to just about anyone if she thought it would further her agenda. It was how she’d won the election in the first place, but it turned out it was much harder to fool the Councillors who actually dealt with her every day than it was the general populace. So Chancellor Sydney smiled and flattered and subtly threatened and built up her power base where she could so that opposing her in any way would be political suicide. She was friendly bordering on fawning to Marcus, who had significant power of his own being in charge of the Guard, and was the perfect poster boy for the working man’s ability to rise through the ranks – a concept close to Diana’s heart, mainly because the ‘working man’ represented a large percentage of her electorate.

Marcus had no interest in being Chancellor Sydney’s pet. He’d rather argue with someone who opposed him because they genuinely thought he was _wrong_ than be pandered to by someone who was only out to manipulate people for their own gain. Abby at least _believed_ in what she said. Abby wasn’t the type to be cowed by another strong personality either, and she was often the one to cut through Diana’s self aggrandising speeches with actual practicalities.

Abby really wasn’t so bad, most of the time.

He had never once had any reason to doubt her integrity, and while she was infuriating on a professional level, Jake and Callie had allowed him to see that she could also be warm, witty and kind, an affectionate mother, a capable leader and a dedicated doctor. He always respected her, occasionally even _admired_ her, frequently found her insufferable, and after years of butting heads and bickering at every council meeting he began to consider her a friend too, of a strange sort.

 

* * *

 

Marcus was looking for the Chancellor, and not having much luck.

The camp wasn’t that big, and it was only a matter of time, but it was amazing how long it could take him to locate a single person in it sometimes. The Ark had been good for that at least – pick up a phone, make a call and there someone was. People generally went where they were supposed to go and did what they were supposed to do anyway; what would be the point of doing otherwise?

Here on the ground, as with so many things, it was different. Abby had a schedule of sorts but the different demands of being Chancellor meant that she was rarely able to keep to it, and Marcus couldn’t think of anything she could be doing that would take up her entire morning without him catching sight of her once. So far, out of the people he’d asked, he’d gotten several vague shrugs, a couple of completely contradictory answers, neither of which turned out to be correct, and one teasing innuendo from the girl Harper which he carefully pretended not to hear.

That was another thing that was different here on the ground; the more casual attitude towards authority that so much of the camp had now, born from the fact that those who had been here longest were the surviving kids out of the original 100 prisoners, and they hadn’t thought much of Chancellors or Councils or rules even _before_ being sent down. Marcus knew full well that although the younger members of the camp had a _certain_ amount of residual respect for Abby’s authority, and his own, they still really saw Clarke as their _leader,_ even in her absence. And Marcus wasn’t sure that Bellamy Blake couldn’t stage a coup of his own as well, if he had a mind to.

A foolish thought, of course, but one that did occasionally prey upon Marcus’ mind. After all, out of the two Chancellors they had had on the ground so far, neither Abby nor himself had actually been democratically elected. The irony was, of course, that neither of them had really _wanted_ to be Chancellor either, any more than Clarke had wanted to become a leader of her people. Perhaps that was always how leaders ended up in power – driven by the simple desire to protect everyone they knew as best they could...and the fear of what someone else might do in their place.

At least Marcus had known when _he_ handed over the title that it would be in good hands. He didn’t always agree with Abby’s decisions, but she was a damn good Chancellor – the Arkadia camp was starting to flourish under her care, and she seemed to have her hand in everything, from the new vegetable gardens and tentative livestock accumulation, to the detailed mapping of the surrounding area, to the school that was being set up for the younger children. And of course she was as busy as ever in medical too, not just dealing with the day-to-day accidents and incidents that naturally came with a group of their size, but training up more of their people in basic medical skills, and working with Lincoln and Nyko to integrate the Grounders’ healing knowledge with their own. Even when it came to things where Abby had to defer to the skills and experience of others – like Engineering’s constant projects to improve the camp or the Guard’s security detail – she still made it a point to stay informed and insisted on regular reports to her personally.

It was all working. Not perfectly, but it was working. For the first time since they had come to the ground, things were going _well_. The camp was running, their supplies were increasing, their infrastructure improving, and relations with the Grounders were tense but peaceful. Putting Abby Griffin in charge was, Marcus thought, possibly the best thing he had ever done for his people.

Unfortunately, he was becoming acutely aware that it was also a _lousy_ thing to do to a friend.

He eventually found Abby fast asleep, slumped over a desk in one of the little rooms off Medical that were the closest thing they had to research labs. She was breathing deeply and evenly, and didn’t stir when he entered.

“Abby?” he said gently, and when this got no response he reached out and touched her shoulder. She jerked awake with a sharp intake of breath, her head whipping up from where it had been laid on the desk, resting on a data pad and surrounded by a dozen little carefully labelled jars.

“Marcus?” she said blearily. “What are you doing here?”

Her hair was all over the place from sleeping on the desk, and she was obviously having some difficulty focusing on him. Abby Griffin was never at her best right after having just woken up, a fact Marcus had only recently learnt and tried very hard not to find endearing.

“You know, traditionally, people sleep in beds,” he said with a small smile. “I know things are different here on the ground, but that’s one old Ark custom you might want to consider hanging on to.”

Abby threw him an irritated look that was undercut by her yawning widely. “What time is it?” she said.

“Nearly noon.”

_“What?”_

She scrambled up from the chair in horror, nearly knocking it over. “I slept all night?” she cried.

“Just like most people do, yes,” said Marcus.

“And half the day as well! Oh god...” She ran her hands distractedly through her hair. “I need to find Miller, I should have checked in with him hours ago. And I was going to talk to Raven about the rover—”

“Abby, slow down.” He placed a hand briefly on her arm to halt her as she showed every sign of dashing out of the room. “You can’t do everything at once. Falling asleep at your desk is a sign that you probably need a break.”

“I don’t have _time_ to take a break,” said Abby, glancing at the hand resting on her arm. Marcus removed it quickly.

“You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead on your feet from exhaustion,” he said, ignoring Abby’s obvious impatience. “I’ve hardly seen you for more than five minutes at a time the last few days because you’re always rushing off somewhere.”

“It’s just a busy time,” said Abby.

“It’s _always_ going to be a busy time,” said Marcus. “That doesn’t mean you need to try and do everything that has to be done personally. You need to take care of yourself too.” He hesitated, aware he was sounding rather accusatory. “Jackson is worried about you,” he said, trying to make his voice a little gentler.

This was technically true of course – in fact Jackson has asked him to speak to her about it just the other day – but the look on Abby’s face told Marcus that using that excuse was wearing pretty thin.

“Well you can tell _Jackson_ ,” she said pointedly, “that I’m just fine. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“What is all this, anyway?” Marcus asked, gesturing to the data pad and the jars.

“Soil,” Abby said vaguely.

“Soil?”

“For farming. PH levels, the effects of ground radiation, likely yields. We’ve been doing some trials.”

“Since when are you a farmer?”

“There’s no point anyone reporting the results of this to me if I can’t understand what they’re telling me, Marcus,” said Abby.

“And this is important enough to keep you up all night?” he said.

“It is if you don’t want to die of scurvy, yes,” she snapped.

“Speaking of which,” said Marcus calmly, “how long has it been since you last ate?”

“I don’t have time for this, Marcus.”

“Doctor Griffin, can you tell me what your medical response would be to a patient who claimed that they ‘don’t have time’ to eat?”

Abby glared at him, but either couldn’t think of answer or – he suspected – couldn’t think of a polite enough one to voice aloud. He took advantage of this brief moment of victory to steer her gently but firmly towards the doorway.

“Come on,” he said, “we’re getting you some food.”

“I have to talk to Miller,” Abby protested.

“Food first.”

“I don’t need a nursemaid, Marcus,” she muttered, as they headed into the corridor beyond.

“As the head of the Guard, it’s my job to keep you safe,” said Marcus firmly. “Even from yourself. First we get something to eat, _then_ we go and talk to Miller.”

Abby sighed, but made no further protest as they made their way outside. It was a beautiful day, clear and bright, without a breath of wind. Faint, wispy clouds drifted overhead, and he saw Abby raise her face to the pale blue sky briefly as they stepped into the sunlight, taking in a deep breath of air. Fresh air was something unique to the ground that they were all still getting used to, and in a sense food was another. On the Ark their food had been mostly flavourless cubes, produced to achieve the maximum amount of calories with the minimum amount of growing space. Protein had been exclusively of the plant kind – there were, somewhat ironically, no animals of the Ark – and vitamins mainly taken through artificial supplements. What Marcus thought of as _real_ food had been grown only sparingly, and reserved for special occasions like Unity Day.

Here though...

Some of them were still very wary of food from the ground at all, and there were quite a few who found the idea of eating the meat of something that had been alive and walking around just the day before rather repellent. But, reservations aside, it was difficult to go back to soy cubes once you had experienced food with actual _flavour._

Marcus managed to get Abby to agree to sit still for five minutes on a bench outside while he went to see Campbell; a genial man who had more or less appointed himself Quartermaster, having had a similar job on the Ark. Marcus had always suspected he had certain ties with Nygel, but had never been able to prove anything...and regardless, the man seemed to genuinely be trying to make a fresh start here on the ground, and was managing the food supplies with a fair and practical efficiency.

Campbell was in a particularly good mood that morning; it turned out that Miller’s party the day before had brought back not only more detailed maps of the subterranean cave system in the surrounding woods, but half a dozen wild ducks as well. Some of the guards were getting pretty good at using the bows and arrows that they had traded from Trikru – Marcus had initially been very surprised at the Grounders’ willingness to trade weapons in that way, but since their own guns were clearly far superior if it came to a fight anyway he supposed they hadn’t seen the harm in it. He also half suspected that Indra felt somewhat guilty over the events at Mount Weather, and had been a lot more open to trade and negotiation with Skaikru than she otherwise would have been as a result.

Most of the duck meat would be salted and smoked to preserve it, but Marcus was allowed some freshly cooked from the fire, and he also negotiated for some of the flat, hard Grounder bread that they had built up quite a supply of. The stuff wasn’t half bad, and could be kept for a long while, though Marcus had so far not been able to find anything that _any_ Grounder was willing to accept as a trade for information on how or where it was made. Trikru held the locations of their farming land very dear.

When he returned, for all her earlier protestations, Abby tore into the food as if she was ravenous. Whatever and whenever she had eaten the day before, it clearly hadn’t been enough. Marcus considered another lecture, but decided against it. Abby was a grown woman after all, and he could hardly personally drag her to meals every day just to make sure she was eating properly.

Although the idea did have a certain appeal.

He contented himself instead with eating the piece of bread he’d grabbed for himself and watching Abby devour her own out of the corner of his eye. There was something oddly satisfying in seeing someone eat food that he had brought for them – it appeased some deep hunter-gatherer sort of instinct, regardless of the fact that _he_ hadn’t hunted anything, and a trip to the quartermaster probably didn’t constitute ‘gathering’ either. Still, it was nice. Just to sit with Abby for a brief moment of peace, eating in comfortable silence while the camp busied itself around them, was enough to make him feel amazingly content.

Abby swallowed her last mouthful of bread and gave a satisfied sigh. “I used to _dream_ of food like this,” she said. “Back on the Ark.”

“I think we all did,” said Marcus, smiling at her immediately improved mood. “The old vids made it look really good.”

“The old vids made _everything_ about Earth look really good,” said Abby. She frowned a little. “You know I used to think that was a bit cruel, showing us all those things we had and lost. I think it made it harder for people to just live their lives and accept the reality of the Ark, constantly being shown images of a world they’d never get to see.”

“Well the plan always was that we’d go back some day,” said Marcus.

“I guess so,” said Abby. “But it was a strange way to live, when I think about it. It always felt a bit like...we were all just waiting around. And now we’re down here on the ground sometimes it still doesn’t feel quite real. Just like another dream.”

 Marcus had the sense of her brief good mood slipping away as quickly as it had come, and cast around for something to say. “Didn’t you tell me the other day that you dream of the Ark sometimes?” he said.

“Sometimes,” said Abby.

“What do you dream about?”

Abby shrugged, a carefully casual gesture. “Easier times,” she said. “Routines I’m still not used to losing. Little moments, like walking through the corridors, or visiting Farm Station, or just getting home at the end of a long day...”

She let the sentence trail off vaguely, and it was obvious why. For Abby, getting home at the end of a long day back on the Ark meant seeing her husband and her daughter. Both of whom she had now lost.

There was an uncomfortable silence in which Marcus couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes. His gaze drifted instead to the ring hanging around her neck and he felt a sudden tightness of emotion in his chest; sympathy or jealousy or regret, or perhaps some strange combination of all three. Whatever it was, it surprised him in its intensity.

“Strange,” said Abby, breaking the silence, “but back on the Ark I used to dream about the ground all the time. Ever since I was a kid. Trees, rivers, mountains...now I’m finally down here and what I dream about the most is back up there.”

“It makes sense,” said Marcus. “We all lived there for most of our lives, after all. It’ll probably take a few years just to adjust to our new reality.”

Abby smiled slightly. “It’s ridiculous,” she said, “but I think a part of me still expects to go back some day, even though there’s nothing to go back _to_. But we’ll be here for the rest of our lives now. One way or another.”

For someone who had been so adamant about Earth being survivable, so single minded about getting everyone down to the ground, she seemed almost sad about it.

“Do you ever wish we were all still up there?” Marcus said, and regretted it the moment the words were out of his mouth. What a stupid question. Of course Abby would wish that – if they were still on the Ark it would mean that there had never been an irreparable fault in the air systems, that her husband would still be alive and her daughter safe and happy and with her. For Abby, life on the Ark had meant a loving family, a respected position, a secure and stable home. Wishing they were all still up there was probably the first thing she thought of when she woke and her last thought before closing her eyes every night.

He opened his mouth again to save her from answering, but before he could say anything she replied with: “Do you?”

Marcus hesitated. The truth was that he hadn’t given it much thought, but his immediate and instinctive answer was ‘no’. However his reasons were all so unimaginably selfish that he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“Sometimes,” he said instead, and Abby gave him a brief, wry smile, as if she knew exactly what he’d been thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I had some really good barbecued duck the day I wrote most of this chapter, and I have a sneaking suspicion that it may have influenced my writing somewhat)


	4. Acceptable Risks

The Ark was dying. The air was running out.

Marcus wasn’t the sort of person to wallow in bad news, but he found that this knowledge settled on his shoulders like a shroud, weighing down his every waking moment as he went through the motions of his daily routine.

The air was running out.

The cold fact of it was inescapable, hovering over his shoulder and whispering into his ear, keeping him awake late into the night. He could see the same haunted look in the eyes of Chancellor Jaha and his fellow Council members. They held countless, hours long meetings behind closed doors, they argued and bargained and cast blame and threw around wild solutions, each more unworkable than the last. They were angry and desperate, and underneath it all they were _afraid._

Marcus knew it because he felt it himself. The horrible, persistent fear that _this was it_. That there would be no fixing things this time. It was as though there was a small part of them all that had been waiting all along for something to happen, and knew instinctively that now their time was up. What frightened Marcus wasn’t the idea of his own death, or even the death of those he cared about, but the death of _everyone_. It was unthinkable, unimaginably appalling, that it should come to this. That the last remnants of the human race should die like this, cold and alone in space, and then there would be...what? _Nothing._ Just an empty metal husk circling a dead world forever.

He hadn’t really been a spiritual person since he was a boy, but deep in his soul Marcus couldn’t believe that the universe, or God, or whatever reason and justice existed in this damned life would _let_ that happen.

Nonetheless. The air was running out.

To make matters worse, that was not the only problem they faced. Jake Griffin had not been the one who had discovered the fault in the system, but he _had_ been the one who confirmed it, the one who worked out what it meant, the one who took the news to Chancellor Jaha. And he was utterly convinced that the people of the Ark had a right to know what was happening.

He argued his case to the Council, and when that didn’t work he argued about it in private with Marcus, the only serious argument they’d ever had. Marcus had influence, Jake said, Marcus could get the Council to change their minds. In actual fact, Marcus was so used to arguing with Abby – who was all simmering fury and could, with her jaw set and a piercing glare, tear you apart with a few choice words – that arguing with her husband was an experience he was entirely unprepared for. There was something _unreachable_ about Jake Griffin once his mind was made up. He would stand there and look you calmly in the eye and explain all the reasons he had for destroying their fragile society, in a tone that made it seem almost justified. He spoke of trust and democracy and people pulling together in a crisis, and all the other many wonderful, naive, impossible words that would get everyone on the Ark killed in bloody, violent rioting. Marcus tried his best to make him see that the Council’s decision was the right one but, as Jake himself said, if his own wife couldn’t convince him, what chance did anyone else have?

Which told him that Jake had been arguing with Abby about this too, and for some reason that worried Marcus more than anything else. He had never known Jake Griffin to be anything other than respectful and quietly proud of his wife’s authority. It was as if their entire world had been shaken loose.

The air was running out.

A few days later, Chancellor Jaha summoned Marcus to his office and told him that Jake Griffin had been accused of treason, and that the evidence was strong enough to warrant an immediate arrest. In the current situation, justice must be swift and impartial, and must also be _seen_ to be so. The Chancellor was acting, so he said, upon ‘information received from a very reliable source’.

It didn’t take a genius to work out what that meant. Abby had made her choice, and now she would have to live with the consequences. And Marcus would have to live with them too.

He should have been angry with the lot of them for putting him in this position, but found it impossible; Jake was doing what he thought was right, and so was Jaha, and so was Abby, as always. Perhaps she hadn’t known what it would lead to, perhaps she really thought that this could end some other way. Perhaps Abby was in some ways as naive as Jake, and believed deep down that she could _fix_ this as she always had been able to fix things before. It didn’t matter. Jaha was right, the law didn’t care about motive.

So it didn’t matter that Abby Griffin was a Councillor, it didn’t matter that Abby Griffin was head of Medical, that she had saved more lives than anyone could count, that she had given her heart and soul to her people every moment that she could, every day of her life. It didn’t matter that she had actually _agreed_ with Marcus for once, that she had done everything that she could to stop this, that her life was crumbling around her. It didn’t matter that they had worked together for years. It didn’t matter that Abby Griffin was his friend.

The plain fact was that her husband had broken the law, and had put the lives of everyone on the Ark at risk. And everyone on the Ark was everyone that there _was._

The air was running out.

Marcus did his job. As always.

 

* * *

 

It was late afternoon when Marcus found himself summoned to the Chancellor’s office, feeling vaguely as though he had done something wrong.

Abby had sent someone to fetch him, which was unusual; as the two most senior ranking members of the camp they checked in with each other several times a day as a matter of course, and these days they tended to spend what little free time they had together as well. It had been a gradual shift in their relationship, an indefinable need for closeness that he knew she felt too, though neither of them had put anything into words. They had been thrown together for so long during crisis after crisis in the past few months that it only seemed natural now for both of them to gravitate to each other even in a time of peace. They had become something of a unit without even noticing, a strange kind of partnership.

Still, Marcus couldn’t think of any reason Abby would specifically _send_ for him unless there was something wrong, but he hadn’t heard of any kind of crisis and today had been pretty much business as usual so far. Even so he couldn’t help but hurry as he made his way across camp and through the old corridors of the Ark to the room they had designated the Chancellor’s, pausing only long enough for a quick respectful knock on the door – regardless of how much time he spent here it was _her_ office after all – before heading in.

Abby was sitting at the large metal table that had been welded together from some old bulkheads, surrounded by the few remaining chairs they could scrape together. What furniture they had was piecemeal and haphazard, half rescued from the ruins of the Ark and half built from what raw materials they had since landing. Things like beds and showers had obviously been a priority at first, but now they were settling in a few other things were starting to appear, mostly cobbled together by individuals, that gave everything a more lived in, permanent feel. Even this room was no exception; everywhere there were little signs of the person occupying it, like the microscope and jars of samples on the shelves, the boxes of drugs that couldn’t be trusted to be held safe elsewhere now that so many people had access to Medical, the drawings on old scraps of paper tucked into a corner that could only have been Clarke’s, a handful of the wildflowers that grew around the edges of camp wilting in a mug of water on a table.

The room felt like Abby. In fact, it felt a lot like home.

Abby didn’t immediately acknowledge him as he entered. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail, a few rogue strands tucked behind her ears and falling out across her face as she leaned over her work. It was unusual to see; she had been wearing her hair loose more or less since they came down to the ground and this made her look more serious somehow, as if she were preparing for something. Or perhaps that was more the expression of intense concentration on her face as she scanned the pages. Marcus approached somewhat warily.

“You wanted to see me?” he said.

Abby looked up and nodded, gesturing for him to sit down. “I want to talk about something you’re not going to like,” she said.

Instinctively, Marcus glanced at the papers on the table and tensed when he recognised a couple of schematics. Maps of tunnels.

“Mount Weather,” he said.

It wasn’t really a question, but she nodded anyway. Marcus moved over to the nearest empty chair and sat down on it heavily, Abby turning in her own chair to watch him.

“We’ve had this conversation already...” he began, but she held up a hand to forestall him.

“I know,” she said. “And I know what you’re going to say. That the Grounders will see any movement on the mountain as a threat, that it will make them see _us_ as Mountain Men even more than they already do. That it’s a risk we can’t afford to take given the fragile peace we have at the moment.”

“All true.”

“And all irrelevant if we’re wiped out this winter from lack of basic supplies.”

“Abby...”

“I’m not talking about bringing back cake and throw pillows, Marcus. I’m talking about _food_ to last us through the rest of winter, clothes, blankets, shoes...I’m talking about medical supplies which we desperately need. We _know_ they have those things.”

_Medical supplies_ , thought Marcus. Yes, they definitely knew Mount Weather had those. He remembered Abby strapped to a table and screaming, and bile rose in his throat.

“We’re not going there to stay,” continued Abby, either not noticing his discomfort or – more likely – choosing to ignore it. “We’ll be open about our intentions to Trikru, and I’m sure they’ll realise anything we bring back could be of use to them as well, if we trade it. I know they still have their superstitions about the mountain even now, but surely they can understand the idea of...” She trailed off, clearly struggling for the right words.

“Spoils of war?” suggested Marcus.

“I wouldn’t have put it like that,” said Abby, a little subdued. “But yes. I know we’d all rather pretend the whole thing never happened, but Mount Weather is a resource we just can’t let go to waste.”

“So you’re planning a supply run,” he said.

“Yes. We leave tomorrow. Raven says the rover should be able to handle the journey and this will be a good long distance test. We can move supplies on a much bigger scale than we could on foot, and we won’t be away as long either.”

It took a few moments for the words to really register, but when they did Marcus looked up at her sharply. “What do you mean ‘we?’ Abby, don’t tell me _you’re_ thinking of going. You’re the Chancellor.”

“I’m also a doctor,” said Abby. “We need someone who can take an inventory of what medicine they had, who knows what they’re doing.”

“Jackson could—”

“Jackson hates going outside the camp, and you know it. I won’t make him do that when it makes more sense for me to go myself. The others are needed in Medical and, as you said, I am the _Chancellor_. If we do this it needs to be me. The consequences are on my head.”

“If this goes wrong, the consequences will be on _all_ our heads,” said Marcus.

“Then I’ll have to make sure it doesn’t go wrong.”

Marcus felt a horrible sense of inevitability at her words, spoken without any particular feeling but calm certainty. There was no trace of persuasion in Abby’s voice, nor had there been for the whole conversation; she wasn’t asking him, or even consulting him, she _was telling_ him. She had clearly already made up her mind before he arrived.

And so she _would_ be going. There was no force on earth or otherwise that could stop Abby Griffin when her mind was made up, least of all him.

“You don’t have to try and do everything yourself. You can rely on other people, Abby,” he said, and if his tone sounded like he was lecturing her then it was at least better than sounding too wounded. Even so, the implication hung in the air, inescapable. _You can rely on me. You could have talked to me about this before, instead of just telling me about a decision already made._

“I am,” she said briskly. “I’m relying on other people to look after this place while I’m away for a couple of days. I’m leaving you in charge, so—”

“No,” said Marcus immediately. “I’m coming with you.”

“It doesn’t make sense for both of us to go,” said Abby. “I need someone here running things who I can trust, just in case anything happens.”

Marcus shook his head. “There’s no way I’m letting you go back into that place alone.”

She shot him a slightly amused look. “I wasn’t planning on going _alone_ , Marcus.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Do I?”

She held his gaze, the challenge clear in her eyes. Marcus forced himself not to look away, even though he knew he had already lost. There was no way he could justify the fact that he didn’t like to have her out of his sight without just flat out saying as much, and she knew it.

Having her hair pulled back quite suited her. It exposed the slender curve of her neck, the sharp line of her cheekbones, soft wisps of hair framing her face. That thought wasn’t really relevant right now, Marcus realised, and he pushed it the back of his mind to examine later.

“I’m coming with you,” he said, one last ditch effort. “This isn’t up for debate, Abby.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You know, call me crazy but I think some people would say that the Chancellor is the one who gets to give the orders.”

“Are you _ordering_ me to stay behind?”

There was a beat of tense silence before her face softened slightly. “No,” she said, and now she sounded more tired than annoyed. “I don’t want to do that. I’m _asking_ you to trust me. I can handle this.”

And that was it. Marcus hadn’t had much of an argument to begin with, and even if he _had_ it was clear Abby was not in a mood to listen. She was the Chancellor, after all, and he knew her well enough to at least be sure that this wasn’t a decision she had made lightly.

Besides, it was very difficult to have an argument with someone when all you could seem to think of was how beautiful their eyes were.

“Alright,” he said heavily, and felt a little ashamed when he saw an obvious flicker of relief pass over Abby’s face. “You’re leaving tomorrow?”

Abby nodded, relaxing slightly in her chair. “We’ll pack up the rover ready this evening and leave tomorrow just after dawn. It’ll take a few hours to get there and I want to have as much light as possible to move supplies out once we arrive. We’ll travel light so we can bring as much back as we can, but mostly this first trip is going to be about taking stock. We stay there overnight and return the next day once we’re loaded up. We should be back well before dark.”

“You should take Wick if Sinclair can spare him,” said Marcus, turning his mind to logistics. “He’ll be useful getting things back online. And you’ll need someone who can figure out their agricultural systems as well. Since I’m staying here, Miller should head up the security.” he paused briefly. “David I mean, not his son. None of the kids should have to go back there.”

“Agreed,” said Abby. “It’s too soon for them. How many Guards can you spare me?”

“As many as you need,” said Marcus immediately. “But too many people...”

“Will look to the Grounders like we’re moving in,” finished Abby. “I know. We’ll be careful. Believe me, I don’t want us in Mount Weather permanently any more than they do.”

“I’ll talk to Miller,” said Marcus, standing up. “And I’ll send a runner to Indra before it gets dark to let her know. If we play this off as just another routine supply run, maybe us acting as though it isn’t a big deal will help persuade them.” _Now if I could just convince myself too, that would be better._

Abby nodded her assent, and turned back to the schematics on the table as Marcus headed out of the room, a heavy knot of worry settling in his gut. He was halfway out of the door when he heard Abby suddenly speak from behind him:

“You don’t have to do that, by the way.”

Marcus turned back, frowning. “Do what?”

“Try to protect me,” said Abby. “I can take care of myself.”

She looked very small from the doorway, sitting at the large metal table alone in the empty room. The look on her face was half defiance, and half something else, something that he couldn’t place. Marcus got the strong impression that this time she was the one forcing herself to meet his gaze.

“I know you can,” he said quietly, making an attempt at a smile. “But you shouldn’t _have_ to.”

For a moment Abby looked genuinely surprised, and then her face broke into a soft smile as well. “Goodnight Marcus,” she said. “I’ll see you tomorrow before we leave.”

“Goodnight Abby.” He turned away quickly and left, not sure how to feel about the whole conversation. Or the whole situation, for that matter.

Using Mount Weather in any capacity was a risk, but then _everything_ they did these days, everything they had _ever_ done, was a risk. In truth what really bothered him was that it was a risk to Abby, and that was more of a problem than anything else. He should be able to at least _try_ to stay objective where her safety was concerned.

These days he found it very difficult to stay objective at _all_ where Abby was concerned.

These days he had to be very careful not to hold her gaze for too long, not to smile at her too often, not to stray beyond that cautious, respectful distance that they allowed each other. It would be all too easy to overstep the mark and for Abby to realise that he cared for her far more than he was supposed to. If she hadn’t realised already.

Marcus tried not to think about it. It was enough that they had reached this point and she considered him an ally, a friend once more. He wouldn’t ask anything more of her.


	5. Reputation

Marcus didn’t go to Jake Griffin’s execution, though in the past he had made it a point to be present at every single one. Some of his guards considered him callous for that, but as far as Marcus was concerned there was a principle involved – you could not make difficult choices for the good of others unless you were prepared to face the consequences without flinching.

Not this time.

He had done his job. He gave the orders, he ensured that they were carried out. He would not doubt that it needed to be done, but he didn’t have to _see_ it be done. Neither Jake nor Abby would want him there anyway, and he could at least give them that much.

Chancellor Jaha would be there of course. That was _his_ way of paying respect to his friends, and Marcus wondered if the gesture would be seen for what it was, or if Jake Griffin would think Thelonius callous as well. The truth was that their Chancellor was a stronger man than any of them had realised. He would look his friend in the eyes as he died, and he would have to look Abby in the eyes every day afterwards for the rest of his life, knowing what the two of them had borne witness to, what they had _done._

Marcus wondered if Jaha would push the button himself. He forced himself to imagine what was happening at the execution, torturing himself with vivid detail in place of actually being there. He wondered if Clarke would be allowed to be present, or if she’d even want to be. He wondered if Jake would have any last words. He wondered if Abby would tell her husband that she was the one who turned him in, if she would beg forgiveness before the end. He wondered if she would plead for mercy, if she would cry, even with so many other people present. He had never seen Abby cry.

Jake would be smiling right up until the end, he knew.

By the time the allotted hour had come, Marcus was considerably drunk. He had been slumped on the floor with his head resting on his knees, thinking of the air again in the kind of vague hopeless way his mind always came back to it, when he glanced up at the clock on his desk and realised that Jake Griffin had already been dead for nine minutes.

_Well,_ he thought, _perhaps we’ll all be dead soon enough, the way things are going. Perhaps Jake just got a head start. At least it will have been quick._

Callie came to see him later, or tried to. Whether it was to rage at him or to comfort him he didn’t know, but since he couldn’t face the former and didn’t deserve the latter, he ignored her calls and didn’t answer his door. There were times when you had to face things alone, not because you wanted to, but because anything else would make you the worst kind of hypocrite.

The next day, Marcus Kane turned up for work as usual, prompt and professional and with not the slightest hint that anything had changed. Order had to be maintained, after all. The whole _point_ was that everything should appear to be continuing as normal.

Besides, there was still a loose end to be tied up.

Clarke Griffin was seventeen years old, grieving, impulsive, and she knew _exactly_ why her father had just been killed. Clarke Griffin was going to be a _problem,_ and one Marcus intended to deal with as quickly as possible. His friend had just died for the sake of keeping a single, terrible secret, and Marcus would not see that sacrifice be for nothing. He also had no intention of letting his friend’s daughter be executed for the same crime as her father; it was safer for their people and safer for the girl herself to keep her locked up and separated from everyone else until this situation could be resolved. By the time she was eighteen and up for review...well, one way or another the truth would be out, and Marcus doubted anyone was going to float a teenage girl for something she _might_ have done if given the chance.

He said as much to Chancellor Jaha the day after Jake’s execution, and the Chancellor agreed. The best thing for Clarke was to contain her now before she did anything foolish. Her being kept in the Skybox would also act as a deterrent to Abby just in case _she_ decided to follow in her husband’s footsteps as well.

Marcus hadn’t even considered that, and was surprised to hear that Jaha had. But then, whatever friendship the Chancellor and Abby had enjoyed had presumably ended the moment Jaha had ordered her husband’s execution. Councillor Abby Griffin was to be sympathised with, but no longer to be trusted.

It was a hard truth in a situation full of hard truths. Marcus followed his Chancellor’s lead and bore it along with the rest, as best he could.

 

* * *

 

It was not quite a week after their first supply run to Mount Weather and just after midday when movement was spotted on the edge of the forest. Marcus had been going over some maps with Lincoln when the call came through on the radio, and all but sprinted out to the wall that surrounded Arkadia. The slightly uneasy peace they had with the Grounders might have facilitated a certain amount of trade and co-operation for mutual survival, but it definitely did _not_ extend to Grounders showing up unannounced at the camp gates. And Marcus knew full well there were still some of the Guard who were more inclined to shoot first and ask questions later when it came to Grounders in general. Since the grim and grudging reaction Indra had shown to their encroachment on the Mountain, Marcus had in a way been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and at a time like this the slightest incident or misunderstanding with the neighbouring Trikru could be potentially catastrophic.

When he arrived, slightly out of breath and not half as dignified as he would have liked, he was relieved to see Bellamy with the couple of sentries that had been on duty, peering through binoculars at the treeline. Since Bellamy hadn’t been on duty, he must have heard the call through the radio as well, and was likely here because of the _other_ reason Marcus had for rushing, the one he didn’t even like to admit quite to himself.

But as Bellamy handed him the binoculars, he gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Whoever was out there, it wasn’t Clarke.

“Looks like Grounders,” he said. “I can’t tell if they’re Trikru or not from here, but Octavia would know. I count two, but there could be more.”

“They’re on the move!” cried out one of the sentries, raising his gun suddenly as figures stepped out of the treeline with their hands raised: two Grounders, a man and a woman, approaching the main gate with slow, careful steps. As they got closer, Marcus could see that their faces were clearly frightened, and he suspected the only reason they hadn’t immediately turned and run at the sight of the gun was that they would have to present their backs as targets. They were certainly making a show of not being armed, and even if they were...

“Two people is not an attack,” Marcus said firmly. “Stand down.”

The sentry lowered his gun with obvious reluctance.

“It only takes one person to be an assassin,” said Bellamy, but quietly, so that only Marcus would hear him.

“Do they _look_ like assassins to you?” replied Marcus in an equally low tone, as the Grounders approached cautiously.

“Do they ever?”

It was a fair point, but even though there were plenty of Grounders who would wish the Sky People harm, Marcus couldn’t believe any of them would walk in through the front gate like this. And these two ragged figures looked like they would barely be able to defend themselves in a fight, let alone start one. The man was old, older than any Grounder Marcus had yet seen – even accounting for the way their harsh lives aged them, he must have been in his seventies at least. But his eyes were sharp and flickered around warily as they approached, taking in the sentries, the walls, the weapons. Presumably you didn’t get to live to a ripe old age as a Grounder by being careless.

The woman with him was about half his age, and looked more terrified than anything. She had long dark hair and what looked like a fresh painful gash across her right temple. As soon as they were inside the gate she started gabbling a rapid stream of Trigedasleng, heavily accented and fast enough that Marcus was only able to make out a few words.

Seeing their confused and wary expressions, the Grounder man stepped forwards, placing a hand on his companion’s arm to halt the flow of speech, and spoke slowly and clearly.

“ _Osir gaf Heda_ ,” he said. “ _Heda kom Skaikru_.”

“They’re looking for Ab...for Chancellor Griffin,” said Marcus, translating automatically, though most people present had at least enough knowledge of the Grounder’s speech to understand that much.

“Are you sure they don’t mean Clarke?” said Bellamy, but the old man shook his head vigorously at the name.

“ _Fisa_ ,” he said firmly.

“They’re looking for a healer?” said Bellamy. “Then why not just—”

“What’s going on?”

It was Abby’s voice that interrupted him and Marcus turned along with the two Grounders to see her walking towards them. Either someone had been remarkably fast in getting a message to her, or she had just happened to be passing. “Is there a problem?” she said, eyeing the new arrivals.

Upon seeing her, the Grounder woman starting speaking rapidly again, which prompted a small argument between her and the older man. Abby watched them with some trepidation, and she wasn’t the only one. Bellamy, Marcus noticed, had not even turned to look at the Chancellor’s approach, but had kept watching the two Grounders, his hand resting lightly and unobtrusively on the gun at his side. Marcus felt a small flicker of pride that was probably completely unearned – he doubted it was any influence of his own that had made Bellamy into the vigilant, capable Guard that he was turning out to be.

The old Grounder man seemed to win the argument, as he was the one who spoke again, addressing Abby directly this time. Since Abby’s knowledge of Trigedasleng was sketchy at best, Marcus translated as he went.

“Someone they’ve been travelling with needs help,” he said. “Out in the woods. They were attacked by some kind of animal – I don’t know that word, we’ll have to ask Lincoln – and he was badly injured. They want us... _you_ to come and help him. They say he’ll die otherwise.”

“ _Please_ ,” cut in the Grounder woman suddenly, the foreign word falling clumsily from her lips. “ _Please. Em ai yongun.”_

“He’s her son,” translated Marcus. There was a moment of silence, and the woman, perhaps sensing the change in atmosphere, started speaking quickly again.

“They couldn’t move him,” Marcus translated, with some difficulty. “They left him...tunnels...oh that’s ‘cave’...they left him in a cave. Last night. Someone else stayed with him. They’ve been walking here since...”

“Why come here?” said Bellamy, frowning. “Why not go to their own people? I mean, to a Trikru village.”

The old man must have understood more English than he spoke, because he seemed to realise what Bellamy had asked and replied quickly.

“Too far to risk being turned away,” translated Marcus. “And apparently they say the leader of Skaikru is a great healer.”

Abby blinked at him. “They do?” she said. She eyed the Grounder man suspiciously. “Who says?”

The man spread his hands in a wide all-encompassing gesture. “ _Em, emo,”_ he said vaguely.

“Everyone,” said Marcus, and shrugged.

The Grounder woman suddenly pushed forwards and grabbed Abby’s hands. “ _Please_ ,” she said again, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. Marcus wondered if it was the only word she knew.

 

* * *

 

Since they’d gotten it working, opinion on the rover was pretty evenly divided between those who jumped at every opportunity to drive the thing and those who only set foot inside if they had no other choice. It was perhaps notable that the remaining members of the 100 were almost all in the first group. Marcus could drive if he had to, but he couldn’t say he exactly relished the experience. Abby point blank refused – one of the most important parts of being Chancellor, she said, was knowing when to delegate, and being in control of two tonnes of metal crashing through the forest was one time when she was more than happy to do so. She was always more confident with people than she was with machines.

Marcus half suspected she was trying to make some kind of _point_ about her ability to delegate, since it was something he had often reproached her for, but as he quite sympathised with her in this case he didn’t make an issue of it. It was stressful enough for her to be in the metaphorical driver’s seat without taking the literal one as well.

Not that this particular journey would ever have been a peaceful one either way. Bellamy was driving – he was one of the few people Raven trusted with her beloved vehicle besides herself – with the Grounder woman riding shotgun beside him, pointing out the way to go. Her face was livid with terror, though whether it was fear for her son or fear of Bellamy’s driving was anyone’s guess. The old Grounder man was riding in the back along with the rest of their makeshift expedition. Marcus had brought along Harper McIntyre and Nathan Miller, who worked well as a team together and, to his ongoing frustration, had more actual field and combat experience than most of the older members of his Guard put together. Since she had been asked for personally Abby had predictably insisted on coming along too, and left Jackson in charge of Medical, bringing instead a young man named Cooper who she was training up as a medic of sorts. With six of them riding in the back it wasn’t exactly comfortable, and Marcus still wasn’t happy about a last minute journey into the unknown with only a handful of people, especially since those people included two complete strangers _and_ the woman who was both their leader and the best doctor they had.

Becoming Chancellor really hadn’t done anything to curtail Abby’s habit of throwing herself headlong into danger regardless of the consequences, Marcus thought ruefully. It just meant she didn’t have to sneak around so much in order to do it.

Now though, Chancellor Griffin clearly had something on her mind beyond the task at hand. She kept throwing surreptitious glances at the old Grounder man, who was sitting there looking remarkably unconcerned about the bumpy ride. After a while she spoke aloud with unusual hesitancy, addressing her question to Marcus but still watching the Grounder.

“Did they...when they arrived, did they ask for me by name?” she said.

“Not by name, no,” replied Marcus. “But they wanted the leader of Skaikru, and they seemed to recognise you too, so someone must have given them a description.”

“I see,” said Abby, not looking particularly happy at the prospect. “I was just...I’m surprised they knew who I was at all, if they’re not from around here. I mean, of course they would know we have doctors of our own, but...” She trailed off.

“Bellamy said that they were told you’re a great healer,” said Harper. “That’s what the Grounders say about you. It’s probably because of the Reapers, right?”

Marcus nodded. “Lincoln was the first Reaper to be brought back, and before that the Grounders all thought it was a death sentence. But you saved his life. I think it’s safe to assume word got around about that.”

“That was—” Abby hesitated. “Well, yes, I did, but Lincoln deserves the credit for being able to come back from that, not me.”

“But becoming a Reaper was just about the worst thing that could happen to them,” chipped in Cooper. He had been looking slightly green for the whole trip so far, and looked relieved to have some conversation to take his mind off the jolting of the rover. “And you were the one who showed them that it could be reversed. It’s no wonder they’re impressed by you as a healer; you basically cured a fate worse than death, Chancellor.”

“But I...” Abby clearly still had objections, but wasn’t able to easily put them into words. Marcus suspected she wasn’t happy taking credit for something that hadn’t been her idea in the first place, and had only been achieved as a last-ditch effort to save all their lives rather than from any honest humanitarian impulse.

“It’s a good thing,” he said, as reassuringly as he could manage. “You’ve got a good reputation.”

“I didn’t realise I had _any_ kind of reputation,” said Abby.

Marcus couldn’t help but smile. “It’s not that surprising when you think about it. We’re a large group with powerful weapons that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and established itself in their territory. It makes sense they’d try and find out as much as possible about our leader.”

_Especially now that Clarke is gone_ , he thought, but didn’t voice it aloud. It wasn’t exactly a secret that the Grounders considered Clarke the true leader of Skaikru, but Abby hated to be reminded of it. That terrible burden of responsibility was part of the reason that her daughter had left, after all.

Abby had lapsed into a thoughtful silence, but Marcus still caught sight of her throwing the occasional curious glance at the old Grounder man, who had been watching their conversation with disinterest. He wasn’t surprised when, after a few minutes, Abby cleared her throat a little self consciously and said:

“Can you ask him...what _else_ do they say about me?”

Such an abstract question was a little difficult to translate, but Marcus eventually got the man to grasp what he was asking. Going slowly in Trigedasleng so that Marcus could understand better, he was now the one casting looks at Abby as he spoke, looking slightly apprehensive for the first time.

“They say that you led your people down from the sky on a pillar of fire,” translated Marcus, trying not to grin at the dramatic image. “They say you can bring a man back from the dead with a touch of your hand.” Abby made a disbelieving noise but Marcus was concentrating too hard on figuring out the long stream of Trigedasleng to comment. “They say you can’t actually be killed. They say...uh—”

He broke off suddenly, and Abby looked at him curiously. “They say what?” she said.

Marcus cursed himself for hesitating; now he had made things awkward and there was no way she’d let it go if he refused to translate the last part.

He cleared his throat. “They say you’re a woman of such beauty that you can stop a man’s heart with a smile,” he said, trying to keep his voice as neutral as possible.

There was a brief silence. “Oh,” said Abby.

Marcus risked a brief sideways glance at her, and saw the blush colouring her cheeks. When he looked back at the Grounder, the old man was grinning from ear to ear. A faint noise from his other side sounded suspiciously like Harper stifling a giggle.

At that moment, to his great relief, the rover jerked to a stop. Bellamy jumped out, going around the other side of the rover to let out the Grounder woman as the six other passengers piled out of the back into the forest clearing.  The Grounder woman pointed a little way into the trees and set off immediately at a swift jog, leaving the others to follow her, those with guns keeping an eye out for any signs of movement. There was no more conversation – outside the rover the mood was immediately more tense, both from the inherent dangers of being outside so far from camp, and the knowledge of what they were here to do.

They were only a few hundred yards into the thicker trees when the Grounders’ destination became obvious. ‘Cave’ hadn’t been quite the right translation, it turned out. What the woman led them to was a boxy, obviously man-made construction, and as they approached Marcus could see that it seemed to be some sort of large vehicle turned on its side and half buried in plant life. The wheels were long gone but there were the remains of a cab at one end, and the rest was like a huge metal crate, torn open at the far end. It must have once been used for hauling goods.

The Grounder woman beckoned them inside impatiently. Marcus took a brief moment to send Miller and Bellamy back to the rover to keep watch and Harper to stay just outside as the rest of them followed the Grounder woman into the gloom. Once their eyes had adjusted to the dim light they could see a kind of make-shift camp inside the echoing metal hull: supplies piled up in the corner and what looked like several bedrolls around a small, currently unlit fire. The fire was against one wall under a kind of improvised metal flue leading to a hole had been hacked out of the roof of the crate to allow the smoke to escape. Clearly this was a shelter that had been used before by others.

A Grounder girl, probably a few years younger than Octavia, looked up from a pile of blankets as they entered, and fled to the far corner with a squeak of fear, watching them with wide eyes as their group approached. The figure lying on them didn’t stir. It was only a boy. For some reason Marcus had imagined a young man, but under the blankets and layers of grimy sweat the Grounder woman’s son couldn’t have been more than about ten. His skin was pale and tremors ran through his body. Even in the dim light Marcus could see the bandages wrapped around his torso were soaked through with blood.

The Grounder woman ran to his side and cupped the boy’s face with shaking hands. She threw an unintelligible question over her shoulder at the girl in the corner, who replied with a shake of her head. The Grounder woman looked up at them pleadingly, her eyes fixed on Abby.

“ _Sis em au_ ,” said the woman, her voice thick with tears. “ _Sis em au, beja._ ”

Abby instantly snapped into doctor mode, kneeling beside the boy as Cooper gently but firmly moved his mother aside and swung his pack off his back, opening it to reveal an ominous array of medical instruments.

“Light that fire,” said Abby. “We’re going to need to boil some water.”

Cooper gestured to the Grounder woman, who obediently knelt down by the fire to light it, glancing anxiously back over her shoulder at her son as Abby started to peel off the bandages. Meanwhile Cooper was setting up a portable light he had brought with them and trying to angle it to get as much illumination for Abby as he could – they both seemed to take it as a given that the boy couldn’t be moved outside where there was more natural light to see by.

The girl in the corner uncurled herself enough to crawl a little closer, watching nervously. The old Grounder man, however, seemed to decide he was only going to be in the way, and started to make his way back to the opening at the end of the crate. After a brief glance at Abby to confirm that he wasn’t needed, Marcus followed with no small amount of relief. He wasn’t particularly squeamish, but the wounds on the boy had looked nasty and he didn’t have any desire to examine them up close. Besides which, he felt happier being outside and on watch with Harper where he might actually be able to do some good rather than inside just watching others work.

Harper glanced up as the two men emerged, and then went back to scanning the forest around them, clearly making a show of being on alert. Marcus took up position the other side of the crate entrance, making sure he could just about get a line of sight on the rover in the distance, where Bellamy and Miller stood. They had radios of course, if there was any trouble, but it didn’t hurt to be careful.

To his surprise, the old Grounder man just muttered something briefly before walking away, disappearing quickly through the trees in the opposite direction to the rover. Marcus watched him go, frowning.

“Where’s he going?” said Harper. “What did he say?”

“He said his debt is paid,” said Marcus. “I think...it seems he agreed to stay with them until they brought back help for the boy.”

Harper stared at the trees through which the old man had vanished. “He’s not even going to stay and see if he lives or dies?” she asked, a touch of plaintiveness in her voice.

Marcus didn’t answer. What could he say? The Grounders had their own ways, and often obligation was more important to them than sentiment. To be honest, he was a little relieved to see the old Grounder man go; Marcus didn’t like to think of himself as particularly paranoid, but it was one less unknown person to keep an eye on.

Still, the Grounders appeared to have been acting in good faith, and as time went by and no ambush appeared – he hadn’t r _eally_ expected one, but you never knew – Marcus allowed himself to relax a little. There was no sound from inside the metal crate, which must mean the boy hadn’t regained consciousness as Abby worked. That was a blessing, though Marcus didn’t know if it meant she was simply fighting a losing battle. But at least they didn’t have to worry about screams of pain giving away their position. As the hours dragged by it was becoming increasingly likely they’d have to stop here overnight, and although Trikru territory should in theory be safe for them, Marcus didn’t relish the times they had to make camp outside Arkadia. There were far worse things than Grounders in the forest.

The sun was hovering just above the horizon, casting long bands of alternating dark shadow and golden light through the trees, when the first movement came from the metal crate in hours. Marcus turned at the sudden sound as the Grounder girl who had been watching over the boy came stumbling out and sank to the forest floor a few feet away, curling her arms around her knees. After a few moments her thin shoulders started to shake with sobs. Marcus took an instinctive step towards her without thinking, but at that moment Cooper emerged too and crouched down by the girl at a carefully respectful distance, murmuring something that was too quiet to hear, but obviously words of comfort. After a moment he looked up and caught Marcus’ eye.

He shook his head slightly.

Marcus saw Harper’s shoulders sag in disappointment out of the corner of his eye, and felt the breath gust out of his own lungs in a weary sigh. There would clearly be no mercy from the ground today.

After a few minutes Abby herself emerged from the darkness of the crate and strode past them all, her face set, not saying a word. She got to the edge of the clearing a dozen yards away and Marcus was on the point of calling out to her to prevent her from walking too far when she stopped and leaned against a tree. One hand gripped the bark, the other hung at her side, fist clenched tightly. Even from this distance he could see that she was breathing hard. Her clothes were covered in blood.

There was a thin wailing sound from the darkness of the crate; the Grounder woman crying alone with the body of her son.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For once, the next chapter actually leads directly on from the end of this one, so it'll be a short one but posted pretty soon :)


	6. The Dream of Earth

After Jake Griffin’s execution and the arrest and incarceration of Clarke, it was strange to see how Abby changed. Stranger still to see how she _didn’t._

She didn’t stop, didn’t even slow down. Others in her situation – and there _were_ others, plenty of them – often took to drink, or destructive self pity, or just closed in on themselves bit by bit until they slowly faded away, drifting through the motions of their old lives like ghosts. Marcus had seen it before and it was something that always made him feel...not guilty exactly, but regretful. The Exodus Charter was clear on the punishment for the guilty, and clear on why such harsh measures needed to be taken, but there was no pleasure to be found in the toll it took on those left behind. In the end they often suffered more than those given a quick death.

Abby suffered; even someone who hadn’t known her for years could see that. The pain was etched on every line of her face, it sharpened every word she spoke, it weighed heavily on her shoulders with every step. She was more closed off now, more wary, considered her words more carefully before speaking. She smiled far less. She confided in no-one, not even Callie, although Marcus doubted Callie would have told him anything Abby said anyway. She certainly didn’t confide in _him_ ; in fact she didn’t even speak to him now unless absolutely necessary, and he suspected it was the same for Chancellor Jaha.

There were shadows under her eyes at every Council meeting.

She moved into smaller quarters. It seemed cruel, but space was always limited on the Ark and it was undeniably wasteful to have one person living in a place that could easily take a whole family. From what Marcus heard she never saw much of her new room anyway, she spent so much time in Medical. Taking extra shifts, catching up on patient records, working on her mysterious projects.

There was some talk amongst his fellow Councillors about having her removed from the Council – after all, how could she serve the people after her own husband had been executed for treason? Surely there would be a conflict of interest? Surely it would be seen as a sign of corruption at the highest level? Surely the kinder thing to do would be to leave her to grieve in peace, not force her to continue on in such a responsible and high-pressure position? But talk was all it turned out to be in the end, because technically Councillor Griffin had broken no laws, and had even turned in her husband herself, so there were no real grounds for her removal. Some, Marcus included, assumed that she would resign anyway given everything that had happened.

But the resignation never came, and afterwards Marcus realised it had been foolish to expect one. Quitting when things got tough was not in Abby’s nature.

That much about her hadn’t changed. That indefinable internal force that drove her forwards seemed as fierce as ever, now forged by grief into something harder, more focused. A steel tipped arrow of intent, winging its way towards an unknown target.

Barely over a month had passed since Jake Griffin’s funeral when his wife strode into the Council chamber with Chancellor Jaha at her side, arms full of data and her eyes blazing with purpose.

The air was running out, and Abby Griffin had a solution.

Earth.

 

* * *

 

They made camp there in the clearing with the rover, radioing back to Arkadia to reassure them of their return the following morning. Darkness was falling quickly and there was too much risk in driving back through the forest at night, both to themselves and to the rover.

It would have been marginally safer to stay inside the metal crate, as the two Grounder women did, but none of them could face it. So instead they abandoned any ideas of keeping a low profile, built up a large fire and worked out a rota for keeping guard. Marcus ended up taking the first watch, which was in his opinion the best one to have, since it meant in theory an uninterrupted night of sleep afterwards. He took up a post by the rover as the others settled down around the fire, grumbling at the hardness of the ground, until eventually the movements and noises of discomfort faded into the softer subtle sounds of sleep.

Marcus kept an eye on the fire as well as the surrounding trees, and was grateful that after everything that had happened that day, at least it wasn’t raining. In fact it was a clear, crisp night, an infinity of stars scattered across the dome of the sky. Strange how they seemed somehow much closer when seen from the ground than they ever had from the Ark. There were a thousand things about the ground that could never be truly understood until you were here, a thousand things he could never have imagined up there in the cold void of space. Marcus had spent his life seeing images and hearing descriptions of life on the Earth in the time before – they all had – but nothing could begin to describe what it felt like to be here. The way the air smelt damp and sweet after the rain or just before it; the way the stars pinwheeled above at night and the sun dappled through the leaves during the day; the way the forest surrounded you out here, dense and green and growing and so _alive_ ; the way you could feel the earth stretching away on every side of you for miles and miles and miles...

There had been people who had lived and died on the Ark, and never once touched the ground. His mother. Abby’s husband. Callie. So many others. Marcus felt a grief for them so profound he couldn’t put it into words.

_Do you ever wish we were all still up there?_

No. Never. Not for one single moment since he had climbed out of the ship and felt the wind against his face and the sun on his skin for the first time. His gaze drifted over to Abby, lying on her back by the fire, her face turned up towards the stars. On the Ark, Marcus hadn’t dreamed as she had done that they would ever get to see the ground for themselves, but now that they were here...the idea of returning to the life they had before was unimaginable.

He couldn’t think of a worse fate than to go back to that. To live pale imitations of the lives they should have had, to be shadows of the people they should have been. To believe themselves alone, cut off, trapped in an endless holding pattern of meaningless continuation for the sake of some distant future they would never get to see. To look at something that was just out of reach every single day of their lives and never truly _understand_ what it was that they couldn’t have. They had been prisoners, every one of them, just as much as those kids they locked up in the skybox.

This _was_ better. Whatever happened, whatever they went through...the ground was where they were supposed to be.

Marcus woke Bellamy a couple of hours later to take his watch, and headed to his place by the fire where a bedroll and blankets were already laid out, stepping as quietly as he could over the sleeping forms of the others. As he sat down on the hard ground, however, Abby sat up from her position a few feet away.

“Sorry,” he said quietly, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t.” She watched, arms hugging her knees, as he rummaged in his pack and brought out one of Lincoln’s notebooks. This one was full of notes on trigedasleng; pronunciation, grammar, regional variations. There was also a list of plant and animal names in the back with simple illustrations by each one for easy identification. It was a bit like being back at school, but Marcus couldn’t say that it wasn’t extremely helpful.

“You’re not going to sleep?” asked Abby.

“I like to do a bit of reading beforehand,” said Marcus. They were both speaking in low voices to avoid waking the others. “It helps me wind down after a long day of...well, of standing around and not doing much, in this case. It stops me from thinking about everything that has to be done tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry,” said Abby.

Marcus looked at her in surprise. “What for?”

“Making us come all the way out here, leaving the camp for a whole day. You were right before, I could have just sent someone.” She ran her hands wearily through her hair. “I think honestly I just wanted to get away. But it didn’t do any good in the end anyway.”

Marcus glanced back at the metal crate, looming dark amongst the trees, where the wrapped body of the Grounder boy still lay, waiting to be burnt in the morning.

He reached out and touched Abby’s hand briefly, an instinctive gesture of comfort. “You did everything you could,” he said.

“I always do,” said Abby. To his relief, there was nothing worse than weary resignation in her voice, a doctor accepting the loss of another patient. “But honestly, the poor kid was dead before I got here.”

“It matters that we tried,” said Marcus.

“I know,” said Abby.

She was quiet for a moment, and then: “We should give them some of the supplies from the rover tomorrow before we go our separate ways. At least it should help them get to wherever they’re going.”

Marcus nodded. After a brief internal struggle, he reached into his pack again, pushing the notebook back inside and locating a metal flask that made a heavy sloshing sound when he withdrew it. Abby watched him curiously.

“Here,” he said, passing the flask over to her. “You look like you could use it.”

Abby opened the cap, gave the contents a tentative sniff and then jerked her head back, blinking rapidly. “Monty’s moonshine?” she said.

“Forgot I had it with me. I confiscated it.”

Abby raised her eyebrows.

“He gave it to me,” Marcus amended. Actually it had been thanks for helping Jasper to bed one night after finding him passed out on the floor, and he had accepted it only because it had felt more cruel not to,  but there was no need to bring that up now.

Abby’s lips curved into a faint smile. “You know, I hate to tell you this, Marcus,” she said, “but I don’t think any of those kids are even remotely intimidated by you anymore.” She took a swig from the flask and made a face. “God, this is awful. Remind me to find out what he puts in this stuff when we get back to Arkadia.”

She passed the flask back to Marcus, who hesitated for a moment before drinking himself. “Do you intend to improve it, or shut it down?” he said, when the burning in his throat had subsided.

“Neither, just scientific curiosity,” said Abby, and reached over to take the flask back. “It grows on you,” she said in response to Marcus’ unspoken question, and took another pull, the wince on her face belying her words. “And somehow I don’t think ‘Chancellor Griffin bans alcohol’ would be a popular move.”

She passed the flask back to him and watched as he took another swig. “Besides,” she said slyly, “here you are not only carrying but _distributing_ the stuff, so you’d be the first in the stockade. Then where would we be?”

Marcus chuckled, amused and rather pleased at the brief re-emergence of Abby’s more irreverent side. Whether it was the alcohol or the simple fact of being away from Arkadia, it was comforting to see her more relaxed than she had been in a while, especially after such a day.

They passed the moonshine back and forth between them in this way for some time, exchanging only a few words and the occasional brief brush of fingertips as the flask changed hands. The air thickened into comforting warmth with every drink. The stars glittered and swooped overhead.

“You know, it really is beautiful down here,” said Abby. “Even if there was no-one...even if all the people really _had_ died and we never made it to the ground either, it’d still be here without us. The mountains and the trees and the sky and everything. The Earth would keep on spinning.”

Marcus considered this. “Did you ever hear the phrase ‘If a tree falls in the forest and no-one hears it, does it make a sound?’” he asked.

Abby made a noise of assent. “I always thought it was stupid,” she said, with all the honesty of Monty’s moonshine. “The tree makes a sound. Vibrations in the air create what we describe as sound even if it isn’t perceived by a human ear.” She gestured vaguely as she continued, the flask in her hand making a faint sloshing sound as it flew through the air: “I mean you could argue that if no one _hears_ it then it’s only _vibrations_ rather than _sound_ as such, but that’s really just semantics.”

“Scientists make terrible philosophers,” said Marcus.

“Philosophers make terrible scientists,” retorted Abby. “My _point_ is that...” She frowned, obviously trying to remember. “My point is that even if this is all for nothing, it’s not all for _nothing_. You planted your mother’s tree.”

“...yes?” said Marcus, a little thrown by this sudden almost accusatory statement out of nowhere.

“So even if we all die, that tree will still be there,” said Abby, in the tone of voice that said she felt she had indeed made some kind of point. Marcus leaned over and gently took the flask from her unresisting hand.

“We’re not all going to die, Abby,” he said quietly.

“Yes we are,” she said, and for a moment she held his gaze, the grave and fundamental truth of it cutting through the fog of the moonshine. “Sooner or later, we _all_ will. We just have to make sure there’s something worthwhile _left_ for the people that come after. For our—”

_Children._ She stopped talking but the word hung in the air unspoken anyway. Abby looked away again, staring unseeing into the heart of the fire.

Marcus couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

He was overcome with the sudden fervent yearning for Clarke to return, not for her own sake, but because while she was gone a part of Abby would always be gone too. Her thoughts and her heart would always be with her daughter. Until Clarke came back Abby would always be a little distant, and the awful, selfish truth was that Marcus wanted Abby _here_ , whole and happy and with him.

With him.

This was another thing he could never have understood before; the way a campfire licked tongues of warmth across your skin, the way it could halo someone in light, turn them golden and shadowed all at once. The bright, dancing sparks were reflected in Abby’s eyes.

He wanted to kiss her. Truth be told, he _always_ wanted to kiss her, but right now the longing was almost unbearable. He wanted to pull her into his arms, to _hold_ her, to kiss the corners of her eyes and inhale the soft scent of her hair and make her believe that somehow everything would be alright.

He was an idiot.

There was a soft cough from Bellamy over at the rover – impossible to tell whether deliberate or not – that pulled him back to reality. Marcus capped the flask carefully and placed it on the ground beside him. It was nearly empty anyway.

“We should get some sleep,” he said. “It’s a long drive back tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Abby distantly.

Forcing himself not to look at her, Marcus made himself as comfortable as possible with the blankets he had, and presently he heard the rustling sounds of Abby lying back down too. After a few moments he turned his head and saw her curled up on her side, facing away from him. The few feet of earth between them might have been a hundred miles of space between the Ark and the ground, for all the difference it made. He turned back to face the night sky – going to sleep looking at the stars was something he had done since he was a child on the Ark, and that was one thing he was comforted to know hadn’t changed.

“I’m not wrong,” said Abby suddenly, her voice floating out of the dark beside him.

“About what?” Now that he was lying down he could feel sleep encroaching on the edges of his mind, and her words seemed almost dreamlike, out of sight as she was.

“The tree makes a sound, Marcus.” She clearly thought it was important, though he had no idea _why_ and was willing to bet she wouldn’t remember either by tomorrow. But tonight her quiet voice was almost furious with conviction.

“The damn tree makes a sound whether we hear it or not.”


End file.
